Sellout Crowd

[Pete]

It was a scam to the extent that whoever put together their projections wasn't just a little off, they weren't in the same solar system as anything approaching reality.

If you use completely falsified projections to lure investors and employees, that is straight-up fraud.

And it's easy to prove because you have all these proformas that were sent to everyone who signed on, and then you have several months of actual revenue to compare. Also, it sounds like most were told they had $3 million in "investment capital" when in fact it was just a loan. That's also fraud.

These are similar issues to those that landed Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos in jail for over a decade.

[soonerguru]

If you use completely falsified projections to lure investors and employees, that is straight-up fraud.

And it's easy to prove because you have all these proformas that were sent to everyone who signed on, and then you have several months of actual revenue to compare. Also, it sounds like most were told they had $3 million in "investment capital" when in fact it was just a loan. That's also fraud.

Exactly. While it's true their chances of getting anything from a lawsuit are practically nil, there is good reason for them to pursue criminal charges.

[Pete]

^

The problem is that people like the Gaylords and other monopolists took millions and millions out of their businesses, then when digital came along, their massive hubris led them to give away their content thinking that somehow it would all work out.

And after they had screwed things up beyond salvation and the free genie was out of the bottle, they cashed out instead of reinvesting some of those big piles of money.

It wasn't enough they ran their own business into the ground, they made sure the entire industry would never again have a workable business model.

The only savior is citizen journalism. For so long, the battle cry of the failing papers was something like, "We actually have people covering city council meetings and nobody else does or will". It was the 'public good' appeal after they were all on the brink of ruination, even though there is a very, very strong argument that says those big institutions were only lining the their own pockets and those of their cronies. And of course in OKC, we now have a bunch of independent outlets covering City Hall way better than the Oklahoman ever did, especially since the paper was/is in bed with the city and local power players.